31 Days of Halloween 2021 Day 28: 'Horror Noire' Explores The Horror of Race in America

[Once again I'm going to attempt to do a horror(ish) movie review a day for the entire month of October. Might throw in the odd horror related book, comic, or music review as well. I've done this the last few years here and on The Cleveland Movie Blog. Most of the time I succeeded. Other times I didn't. Last year I completely failed and didn't do it at all. I'm optimistic about this year.]

Spinning out of the 2011 book Horror Noire: Blacks in American Horror Films from the 1890s to Present by Robin R. Means Coleman which in turn led to the 2019 documentary HORROR NOIRE: A HISTORY OF BLACK HORROR, we now have the anthology film HORROR NOIRE (no additional subtitle). The film is an anthology of six short horror tales from black filmmakers with primarily black casts, and like many anthologies, the results are a bit hit and miss.

 

“The Lake” is about a teacher apparently coming out of a troubled relationship who takes a job at a new school and moves in to a beautiful lake house. Her caretaker warns her not to go swimming in the lake, though, because it has a tendency to bring out the worst in people. There’s a lot in this segment that goes unexplained that really should have been clarified, and the ending is abrupt and unsatisfying.

31 Days of Halloween 2021 Days 21-24: Capsule Review Catch-Up Part 2

[Once again I'm going to attempt to do a horror(ish) movie review a day for the entire month of October. Might throw in the odd horror related book, comic, or music review as well. I've done this the last few years here and on The Cleveland Movie Blog. Most of the time I succeeded. Other times I didn't. Last year I completely failed and didn't do it at all. I'm optimistic about this year.]

 

Once again doing some shorter capsule reviews to get caught up with my Halloween blog-a-thon. So let's get to it.

 

Day 21: FRIED BARRY. Addicted to drugs, a shitty husband and a shitty father, Barry is probably not the kind of guy you’d want to be a representative of humanity to an alien race. Nonetheless he gets abducted by extraterrestrials take control of his body and use him to walk among earthlings as one of them. As it turns out, most folks like this new alien controlled version of Barry better than the real deal, even if he does act even weirder than before.

 

Great visual style and out there ideas from writer/director Ryan Kruger. This is a nutty acid trip of a movie that barely hangs together as a coherent narrative, but that given the main character that feels about right. There’s some social commentary buried under the weirdness somewhere, but mostly this is just messed up fun. Reminded me of movies like THE HIDDEN and THE BORROWER a little bit, but ultimately this is its own weird thing. 3 out of 4.

 

31 Days of Halloween 2021 Days 17-20: Capsule Review Catch-Up Part 1

[Once again I'm going to attempt to do a horror(ish) movie review a day for the entire month of October. Might throw in the odd horror related book, comic, or music review as well. I've done this the last few years here and on The Cleveland Movie Blog. Most of the time I succeeded. Other times I didn't. Last year I completely failed and didn't do it at all. I'm optimistic about this year.]

 

A number of factors have conspired to keep me from being on top of my Halloween blog-a-thon. Mainly I’ve just been busy, but there’s also the fact that a lot of what I’ve watched either hasn’t been good, or even if it has it just didn’t grab me in a way that made me want to rush out and write about it. But today I find myself with a little extra time, so I’m going to cheat a bit and do short capsule reviews to get caught up. I’ll do another one of these tomorrow and Wednesday, and then hopefully be back on track through to the big day.

31 Days of Halloween 2021 Day 16: 'Halloween Kills' Brings Back Michael Myers, but

[Once again I'm going to attempt to do a horror(ish) movie review a day for the entire month of October. Might throw in the odd horror related book, comic, or music review as well. I've done this the last few years here and on The Cleveland Movie Blog. Most of the time I succeeded. Other times I didn't. Last year I completely failed and didn't do it at all. I'm optimistic about this year.]

 

John Carpenter’s 1978 HALLOWEEN remains a classic, a film that despite its vintage (over 40 years old!) still, for the most part, holds up. There are a few cosmetic issues – since the film was shot in California instead of Illinois where it was set, the trees are still green, and the teenage protagonists are all just a bit too old to convincingly play high schoolers. But the script, the performances, the music, Dean Cundey’s cinematography, and most importantly, Carpenter’s direction, are so strong that any flaws the film might have barely matter. It’s damn close to being a perfect movie. The many sequels and remakes the film has spawned… not so much.

 

Still, when acclaimed indie director David Gordon Green rebooted the franchise with 2018’s HALLOWEEN, I was intrigued. First of all, I really like most of Green’s non-HALLOWEEN movies. And though many fans would disagree, I was happy that his sequel jettisoned all of the franchise baggage to serve as a direct sequel to Carpenter’s original. The results, while not perfect, were at least worthwhile.

31 Days of Halloween 2021 Day 15: Vampires Prey on the Downtrodden of New Orleans in 'Black as Night'

[Once again I'm going to attempt to do a horror(ish) movie review a day for the entire month of October. Might throw in the odd horror related book, comic, or music review as well. I've done this the last few years here and on The Cleveland Movie Blog. Most of the time I succeeded. Other times I didn't. Last year I completely failed and didn't do it at all. I'm optimistic about this year.]

 

Like the works of Anne Rice and Poppy Z. Brite before it, BLACK THE NIGHT makes the case that Transylvania has nothing on New Orleans when it comes to being a stomping ground for vampires. And in a post-Katrina world, the vamps have found plenty of easy prey in the Big Easy among those left behind by the recovery.

 

Teenaged Shawna (Asjha Cooper), along with her dad and brother, has fared better than some. Sadly, the same cannot be said for her mom Denise (Kenneisha Thompson), who has fallen into drug addiction. When Shawna discovers her mom isn’t just an addict but has joined the ranks of the undead, she and her friends Pedro (Fabrizio Guido), Chris (Mason Beauchamp), and Granya (Abbie Gayle) band together to take on the local bloodsuckers under the thrall of Lefrak (Craig Tate) and an immortal former slave named Babineaux (the always welcome Keith David). But can just a small group of teens be any match for the vamps? Hey, it worked for Buffy.  

31 Days of Halloween 2021 Day 14: It's Horror Heaven in 'Paperbacks From Hell'

[Once again I'm going to attempt to do a horror(ish) movie review a day for the entire month of October. Might throw in the odd horror related book, comic, or music review as well. I've done this the last few years here and on The Cleveland Movie Blog. Most of the time I succeeded. Other times I didn't. Last year I completely failed and didn't do it at all. I'm optimistic about this year.]

 

Let’s face it, I am exactly the target audience for this book. I grew up in the seventies and eighties, loving the horror genre in all its formats. Movies were my favorite way to get a fright fix, but horror novels were a close second. And man were there a lot of them during those two decades, calling out to me from the shelves of my local bookstore with their lurid covers and enticing taglines.

 

Thanks to Grady Hendrix and his hugely enjoyable book ‘Paperbacks From Hell’, it’s now possible to enjoy the best parts of the literature in question – the aforementioned covers and basic synopses of the batshit crazy plots – without having to invest the time it would take to read in their entirety what were, if we’re being totally honest, mostly mediocre books.

31 Days of Halloween 2021 Day 13: Explore the Roots of a Psycho in 'Did You Hear What Eddie Gein Done?'

[Once again I'm going to attempt to do a horror(ish) movie review a day for the entire month of October. Might throw in the odd horror related book, comic, or music review as well. I've done this the last few years here and on The Cleveland Movie Blog. Most of the time I succeeded. Other times I didn't. Last year I completely failed and didn't do it at all. I'm optimistic about this year.]

 

If you know your serial killers, then you’re probably already aware that grave robber and murderer (and possible cannibal) Ed Gein served as an inspiration for PSYCHO, THE TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE, and THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS. But his own story is just as interesting as any fictionalized horror film.

 

Writer Harold Schechter has previously told Ed’s story in his book 'Deviant' (1998). Now he has teamed up with one of my favorite comic book artists, Eric Powell, to tell the story in graphic novel form. The results are a bit mixed, but ultimately worthwhile.

31 Days of Halloween 2021 Day 12: Spend a Night in 'Muppets Haunted Mansion'

[Once again I'm going to attempt to do a horror(ish) movie review a day for the entire month of October. Might throw in the odd horror related book, comic, or music review as well. I've done this the last few years here and on The Cleveland Movie Blog. Most of the time I succeeded. Other times I didn't. Last year I completely failed and didn't do it at all. I'm optimistic about this year.]

 

The Muppets have always embraced their scary side, with various monsters making up a respectable percentage of the cast going back to their TV variety show from the seventies and early eighties, and even further back if you count Sesame Street, where Kermit the Frog got his start. And of course, two of the my favorite episodes of the original Muppet Show were the ones hosted by Vincent Price and Alice Cooper.

 

Now that The Muppets, like nearly everything else in the world of entertainment, are owned by Disney, a crossover with Disney’s Haunted Mansion seems like not a terrible idea. But given the uneven track record of the Muppets since the Mouse House acquired them, one could also be reasonably skeptical.

 

Thankfully, MUPPETS HAUNTED MANSION turns out to be spooky fun for all ages.

31 Days of Halloween 2021 Day 11: The Last Matinee Grabs Viewers by the Eyeballs

[Once again I'm going to attempt to do a horror(ish) movie review a day for the entire month of October. Might throw in the odd horror related book, comic, or music review as well. I've done this the last few years here and on The Cleveland Movie Blog. Most of the time I succeeded. Other times I didn't. Last year I completely failed and didn't do it at all. I'm optimistic about this year.]

 

The distinctive Italian horror/murder mystery hybrid known as the Giallo film has always been more about style than logical storytelling. Director Maximiliano Contenti and his screenwriting partner Manuel Facal definitely get that part right. Their film, like the ones that inspired it, is a glossy, brightly colored bauble in which barely defined characters get offed in gleefully gory set pieces by a black-gloved killer with half-baked motivations. 

 

And let's not forget the eye violence that Italian horror films seem to revel in. Man is there some nasty eye violence in this one.

 

31 Days of Halloween Day 10: 'WNUF Halloween Special' Captures the Spirit of the 80s and Halloween

[Once again I'm going to attempt to do a horror(ish) movie review a day for the entire month of October. Might throw in the odd horror related book, comic, or music review as well. I've done this the last few years here and on The Cleveland Movie Blog. Most of the time I succeeded. Other times I didn't. Last year I completely failed and didn't do it at all. I'm optimistic about this year.]

 

This one flew under my radar when it was originally released, but it caught my eye while scrolling through the content available on Shudder. The conceit behind the WNUF HALLOWEEN SPECIAL is that it’s a local TV newscast from Halloween night 1987 that someone recorded on a VHS tape, commercials at all.

 

The film feels authentic, even if the commercials for made up TV shows, movies, and products occasionally spoil the illusion. Not that they don’t feel believable, mind you, it’s just that anyone who knows the era knows the commercials aren’t for real things that actually existed. Younger viewers might not know that, though.

 

31 Days of Halloween Day 9: Rewind to the nineties with 'V/H/S 94'

[Once again I'm going to attempt to do a horror(ish) movie review a day for the entire month of October. Might throw in the odd horror related book, comic, or music review as well. I've done this the last few years here and on The Cleveland Movie Blog. Most of the time I succeeded. Other times I didn't. Last year I completely failed and didn't do it at all. I'm optimistic about this year.]

 

After a 7-year hiatus, the found footage anthology franchise V/H/S returns with its latest installment, V/H/S 94. Streaming exclusively on Shudder, it’s a grisly but fun collection of bite-size horrors from multiple filmmakers that capture the essence of the era in which they are set (1994, natch) while also tapping into the fears of our present.

 

The framing sequence, Jennifer Reeder’s “Holy Hell”, involves a SWAT raiding the compound of a religious cult involved in distributing an especially nasty narcotic that causes its users to gouge out their own eyes while watching videos. This of course offers up the excuse for watching the other short films.

31 Days of Halloween 2021 Day 8: 'Candyman' Gets Its Hook In You

[Once again I'm going to attempt to do a horror(ish) movie review a day for the entire month of October. Might throw in the odd horror related book, comic, or music review as well. I've done this the last few years here and on The Cleveland Movie Blog. Most of the time I succeeded. Other times I didn't. Last year I completely failed and didn't do it at all. I'm optimistic about this year.]

 

While I don’t arbitrarily hate all horror remakes and sequels, in general I find most of them to be comfortably familiar, eminently forgettable entertainments at best, and crass cash grabs at worst. But there’s always those exceptions that prove the rule, like John Carpenter’s remake of THE THING, or Sam Raimi’s EVIL DEAD 2, films that stand on their own as classics of the genre. Nia DaCosta’s CANDYMAN is a welcome addition to that exclusive club.

 

CANDYMAN 2021 is a sequel to Bernard Rose’s 1992 film of the same name, but while I would recommend checking out the original, it’s not necessary. DaCosta gives us all we need to know about the urban legend surrounding its hook-handed killer and the events of the previous film via a nifty little shadow puppet show, just one of the film’s many satisfying stylistic flourishes.

31 Days of Halloween Day 7: A Reenvisioned Classic Comes Off as Cartoonish in 'Night of the Animated Dead'

[Once again I'm going to attempt to do a horror(ish) movie review a day for the entire month of October. Might throw in the odd horror related book, comic, or music review as well. I've done this the last few years here and on The Cleveland Movie Blog. Most of the time I succeeded. Other times I didn't. Last year I completely failed and didn't do it at all. I'm optimistic about this year.]

 

When George A. Romero’s NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD was released in 1968, the distributors inadvertently released it without a copyright notice. This allowed the movie to slip into the public domain. The most obvious ramifications of this situation are that basically anyone can release a copy of the film on home video. But beyond that, it allows for various remakes and spinoffs to use the film’s plot and title, very rarely with satisfying results.

 

The latest film to appropriate Romero’s classic is the aptly titled NIGHT OF THE ANIMATED DEAD, a nearly line for line, shot for shot cartoon version of John Russo’s script directed by Jason Axinn. And honestly, it isn’t a completely horrible idea. As much of a classic as the original is, and as much as I love it, there are aspects that could be improved. Notably, the cast ranges from excellent (Duane Jones in the lead role of Ben) to… not so excellent (Judith Ridley as Judy). And while I personally like the black and white cinematography and minimalist gore and effects, having more modern looking zombies and more blood and gore isn’t necessarily a bad idea.

31 Days of Halloween Day 6: It's Revenge of the Mushroom People in 'Gaia' and 'In The Earth'

[Once again I'm going to attempt to do a horror(ish) movie review a day for the entire month of October. Might throw in the odd horror related book, comic, or music review as well. I've done this the last few years here and on The Cleveland Movie Blog. Most of the time I succeeded. Other times I didn't. Last year I completely failed and didn't do it at all. I'm optimistic about this year.]

 

Louie Schwarzberg’s 2019 documentary FANTASTIC FUNGI walked (or perhaps more accurately, blurred) the line between science and new age woo in its exploration of earth’s fungal lifeforms, and the theory that they may have some sort of interconnected intelligence. Similarly, the late Terrence McKenna wrote several books on his belief that mushrooms and other plant-based hallucinogens were a way to communicate with a metaphysical intelligence he referred to as “the other”.

 

Perhaps that same intelligence reached out to filmmakers Ben Wheatley and Jaco Bouwer, who independently of one another made IN THE EARTH (Wheatley) and GAIA (Bouwer, from a screenplay by Tertius Kapp). Both films deal with the fungal kingdom interacting with humans. But rather than benevolent enlightenment, the protagonists wind up taking decidedly bad trips more akin to Ishiro Honda’s MATANGO, known to American aficionados of psychotronic cinema as ATTACK OF THE MUSHROOM PEOPLE.

31 Days of Halloween 2021 Day 5: The Rural Horrors of 'Honeydew'

[Once again I'm going to attempt to do a horror(ish) movie review a day for the entire month of October. Might throw in the odd horror related book, comic, or music review as well. I've done this the last few years here and on The Cleveland Movie Blog. Most of the time I succeeded. Other times I didn't. Last year I completely failed and didn't do it at all. I'm optimistic about this year.]

 

The setup for HONEYDEW is so familiar, one almost can’t help but feel its main characters deserve whatever horrors befall them. Like, haven’t you guys ever watched THE TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE? Writer/director Devereux Milburn obviously has.

 

A young metropolitan couple – actor/waiter Sam (Sawyer Spielberg, yes, son of that Spielberg and Kate Capshaw) and botanist Rylie (Malin Barr) – are so busy showing us how much they shouldn’t be together that they miss all the obvious red flags letting them know they’ve stumbled into a hicksploitation horror film.

31 Days of Halloween 2021 Day 4: The Unedited Horror of 'Censor'

[Once again I'm going to attempt to do a horror(ish) movie review a day for the entire month of October. Might throw in the odd horror related book, comic, or music review as well. I've done this the last few years here and on The Cleveland Movie Blog. Most of the time I succeeded. Other times I didn't. Last year I completely failed and didn't do it at all. I'm optimistic about this year.]

 

CENSOR

 

For British horror fans in the 1980s, it was the best and worst of times. That’s when home video companies took advantage of loopholes in the law to release previously banned or heavily censored horror movies in uncut form on home video.

 

At least for a while.

 

Once the British tabloid press realized what was going on, they bestowed the mantle of “Video Nasties” on these lurid films. And of course, they tried to blame all manner of real life crimes on their influence. All without any evidence. But when has that ever got in the way of a good moral panic?

31 Days of Halloween 2021 Day 3: 'Psycho Goreman' is an E.T. Gone Bad

[Once again I'm going to attempt to do a horror(ish) movie review a day for the entire month of October. Might throw in the odd horror related book, comic, or music review as well. I've done this the last few years here and on The Cleveland Movie Blog. Most of the time I succeeded. Other times I didn't. Last year I completely failed and didn't do it at all. I'm optimistic about this year.]

 

If E.T. was an unstoppable killing machine and Eliot was a sociopathic little girl, you might wind up with something like PSYCHO GOREMAN. Proudly wearing its influences on its sleeve, PSYCHO GOREMAN captures the vibe of low budget eighties schlock better than any recent film this side of TURBO KID, basking in nostalgia while at the same time managing to feel fresh and original despite all the classic tropes and retro imagery it trots out.

 

The plot is set in motion when Siblings Mimi (Nita-Josee Hanna) and Luke (Owen Myre) dig up a glowing space artifact in their back yard that gives them control over the alien monster buried just a little further down. The alien (Matthew Ninaber), who Mimi has dubbed Psycho Goreman, or “PG” for short, promises to kill the kids the moment he is free of their control. Luke is understandably concerned, but Mimi let’s her dark side run wild, reveling in the power of having her own personal alien enforcer.

 

31 Days of Halloween 2021 Day 2: Taking a Stroll Down 'Fear Street'

[Once again I'm going to attempt to do a horror(ish) movie review a day for the entire month of October. Might throw in the odd horror related book, comic, or music review as well. I've done this the last few years here and on The Cleveland Movie Blog. Most of the time I succeeded. Other times I didn't. Last year I completely failed and didn't do it at all. I'm optimistic about this year.]

 

5 ½ hours is no small amount of time to invest in a trilogy of horror films based on a series of teen oriented horror novels by R. L. Stine if, like me, you were already well past the target demographic when the books came out, and are a full on cranky old man now. But there was a fair amount of buzz surrounding the FEAR STREET films on Netflix, so I figured I’d give the first movie a shot.

 

By the time I’d reached the half hour mark of FEAR STREET: 1994, I’d had enough. It wasn’t just the jumbled and overstuffed YA ‘American Horror Story’ vibe of the thing, although that was a big part of it. No, the straw that broke this camel’s back was the obnoxious “greatest hits of the 90s” as DJed by someone with ADHD soundtrack. Here, enjoy a few seconds of Radiohead’s “Creep”. Ok, enough of that. Here’s a bit of “Sour Times” by Portishead. OR how about some Nine Inch Nails, or a little Cypress Hill? Do you feel like you’re in the nineties yet?  Ugh.

31 Days of Halloween 2021 Day 1: The Joyous Lunacy of 'Malignant'

[Once again I'm going to attempt to do a horror(ish) movie review a day for the entire month of October. Might throw in the odd horror related book, comic, or music review as well. I've done this the last few years here and on The Cleveland Movie Blog. Most of the time I succeeded. Other times I didn't. Last year I completely failed and didn't do it at all. I'm optimistic about this year.]

The setup for MALIGNANT will likely have horror savvy viewers expecting writer/director James Wan to revisit similar territory to his INSIDIOUS and THE CONJURING films. Once it gets into gear and starts throwing one insane twist after another at the audience, however, it becomes clear that this is a very different animal altogether.

Sure, the big budget slickness and Wan’s style are there, but at its heart MALIGNANT is an over the top, go for broke, just plain crazy horror film that has more in common with such gooey, goofy eighties fare as BASKET CASE and THE EVIL DEAD 2 than it does with the usual Blumhouse type fare. There’s also a heavy dollop of giallo style in the fashion of Dario Argento (DEEP RED, TENEBRAE), and a dash of seventies psychic horror ala CARRIE, thrown in for good measure. I’d say there’s even a little bit of THE ABOMINABLE DR. PHIBES in this film’s DNA, although not quite as pronounced as it was in Wan’s SAW. 

The Capitol Theatre brings 12 Hours of Terror into your home for 2020

[Press release from Cleveland Cinemas]

 

THE CAPITOL THEATRE’S SIGNATURE HORROR MARATHON ADAPTS FOR 2020

12 Hours of Terror Goes Virtual

(Cleveland, OH) Like most other events that require a large group of people to gather in one place, the Capitol Theatre’s annual 12 Hours of Terror is adapting to an online platform for 2020. The Capitol Theatre has partnered with Kino Marquee to present its first ever VIRTUAL HORROR MARATHON.

This year, patrons will be able to buy a ticket in the Cleveland Cinemas Virtual Screening Room to an all-night horror marathon that includes the following films: Jess Franco’s A VIRGIN AMONG THE LIVING DEAD (1973), Jean Rollin’s THE NUDE VAMPIRE (1970), Mario Bava’s THE HOUSE OF EXORCISM (1976) & Pete Walker’s THE HOUSE OF WHIPCORD.